On October 6, Senator Jim Banks (R-IN) strongly urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to correct census errors before 2030 by republishing the 2020 numbers using raw data, disclose errors, and use methods that do not inflate one side’s power. His point is simple: counting noncitizens for apportionment lets states with the largest noncitizen populations gain House seats and Electoral College votes. That concentrates political power in a few deep blue jurisdictions where voter verification is fast and loose. And where identity is not cross-checked with registrations, voter fraud escalates. This is no coincidence that the census points to states with now voter ID requirements.
The Census Bureau’s Post Enumeration Survey found significant count errors in fourteen states. Overcounts: Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah. Undercounts: Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas. These errors shape congressional seats, statehouse lines, and the Electoral College. States with large noncitizen populations benefit when every person present is counted for apportionment. Banks warns that overcounts in blue strongholds and undercounts in red states compound the tilt across a decade. Banks also asks Commerce to drop experimental privacy distortions and make the 2030 methods transparent so the public can trust the map.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia let people vote in person without presenting an ID document. Identity is verified by signature, affidavit, or basic personal information. The list: California, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont. Five of the 14 census miscount states also appear here: Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York. Others on the miscount list require ID, and several no-ID states were not miscounted. The overlap is not perfect, but the clustering is real. These states traditionally vote Democratic. Add expansive mail voting, drop boxes, and inconsistent voter roll maintenance, and you get a system that is easy to exploit and hard to audit after the fact. An honest map starts with an honest list.
If this is not fixed, the nation’s map hardens blue by procedure rather than persuasion. The remedy is to publish the unmasked 2020 data so states can validate their lines. Run the 2030 Census with transparent methods, measuring citizens and noncitizens distinctly for apportionment choices. Require documentary ID to vote, provide it free, and back it with quarterly voter roll matched to deaths and movers. Make mail-ballot authentication meaningful and keep a tight chain of custody. One eligible person, one verified vote, one accurate count. That is how you keep a constitutional republic, and how you cool a country tired of maps engineered by political agendas. As in Proverbs 16:11, “Honest weights and scales are the Lord’s; All the weights in the bag are His work.” Keeping dishonest census is worse than, say it with me…Stupidocrisy.
Sources
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/2020-census-undercount-overcount-rates-by-state.html
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-107160.pdf
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/same-day-voter-registration
https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2020-census-count-errors/
